I wrote about the racist attitudes embedded in American Christianity, a problem that has long festered in the church, and the difficulty of dislodging them. I end with some thoughts on what Jesus's call for his people to be peacemakers might demand today. https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/american-christianitys-white-supremacy-problem

The piece takes in @robertpjones's "White Too Long," @JemarTisby's "The Color of Compromise," @esaumccaulley's "Reading the Bible While Black," and @ndrewwhitehead @socofthesacred's "Taking America Back for God." All vital reads in this moment.

. @robertpjones lays out a startling case in his book that “the more racist attitudes a person holds, the more likely he or she is to identify as a white Christian.”

. @JemarTisby traces the revivalist origins of evangelicalism in America, and notes how the movement’s emphasis on individual conversion and piety constrained its social vision.

In “Divided By Faith," Michael O. Emerson and Christian Smith explain how evangelical theology is individualistic and interpersonal; white evangelicals’ understanding of the race problem tends to be rooted in beliefs about individual decisions rather than broader social forces.

. @esaumccaulley writes about the Black church’s biggest gift to American Christianity--the teaching that the Christian message impels both personal and societal change.

One potential pathway is for white church leaders to absorb exegetical lessons from the Black church.

. @ndrewwhitehead @socofthesacred show that the root of the white church’s problem, however may not be Christianity itself, so much as the culture around white Christianity, which narrows and diminishes the American project.

Today’s “slave-holding religion” is preached on Fox News, conservative talk radio, and the rest of the right-wing media ecosystem. Jesus’ blessing for peacemakers may demand that Christians confront these institutions of demagoguery and division in the name of the kingdom.